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Adventure Time
| last_aired = present | website = http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/adventuretime/index.html | production_website = http://adventuretimeart.frederator.com/ }} Adventure Time (originally titled Adventure Time with Finn & Jake) is an American animated television series created by Pendleton Ward for Cartoon Network. The series follows the adventures of Finn, a 14-year-old human boy, and his best friend Jake, a dog with magical powers to change shape and grow and shrink at will. Finn and Jake live in the post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo. Ward describes Finn as a "fiery little kid with strong morals", while Jake is based on Bill Murray's character Tripper Harrison from Meatballs. The series is based on a short produced for Frederator's Nicktoons Network animation incubator series Random! Cartoons. After the short became a viral hit on the internet, Cartoon Network picked it up for a full-length series that previewed on March 11, 2010, and officially premiered on April 5, 2010. The series has had large commercial success and has received generally positive reviews. History The show began as a single stand-alone animated short which ran for just seven minutes. It aired in January 2007 and again as part of Frederator Studios' Random! Cartoons on December 7, 2008. Following the animated short, Frederator Studios pitched an Adventure Time series to Nicktoons Network, but the network passed on it twice. The studio then approached Cartoon Network, with creator Pendleton Ward delivering them an early storyboard for the episode, "The Enchiridion", showing that the premise could be expanded into a series while maintaining elements from the original short. Cartoon Network approved the first season in September 2008, and "The Enchiridion" became the first episode. Style According to Ward, the show's style was influenced by his time at California Institute of the Arts and his work as a storyboard artist on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. He tries to include "beautiful" moments like those in Hayao Miyazaki's film My Neighbor Totoro, and some subversive humor, inspired by comedy series like The Simpsons and Pee-wee's Playhouse. About the post-apocalyptic setting and style Ward described it as a "dark comedy." He said "dark comedies are my favorite, because I love that feeling – being happy and scared at the same time. It's my favorite way to feel – when I'm on the edge of my seat but I'm happy, that sense of conflicting emotions. And there's a lot of that in the show, I think." Executive producer Fred Seibert compares the show's animation style to that of Felix the Cat and the Max Fleischer cartoons, but says its world is also equally inspired by Dungeons and Dragons and video games. Ward intends the show's world to have a certain physical logic instead of "cartoony slapstick" – even though magic exists in the story, the show's writers try to create an internal consistency in how the characters interact with the world. Production Following the stand-alone pilot episode, Frederator Studios pitched an Adventure Time series to Nicktoons Network, but the network passed on it twice. The studio then approached Cartoon Network, with creator Pendleton Ward delivering them an early storyboard for "The Enchiridion", showing that the premise could be expanded into a series while maintaining elements from the original short: funny catchphrases and dances, an awkward kiss moment with the princess and an "Abe Lincoln moment". Cartoon Network greenlit the first season in September 2008, and "The Enchiridion" would become the first produced episode. Many of the series' writers and storyboard artists have a background in indie comics. Pendleton Ward refers to them as "really smart, smartypants people" who are responsible for inserting weirder and more spiritual ideas into the series during its third season. The voice actors include voice acting veterans John DiMaggio, Tom Kenny, Hynden Walch, and Dee Bradley Baker. The Adventure Time cast records their lines together in group recordings as opposed to different recording sessions with each voice actor. This is to record more natural sounding dialogue among the characters. Hynden Walch described these group recordings as like "doing a play reading - a really, really out there play." Ward describes the character Finn as a fiery little kid with strong morals, while Jake is based on Bill Murray's character in the movie Meatballs, as a laid-back twenty-something who usually jokes around, but occasionally gives good advice. This is the first Frederator television series outside Nickelodeon. Setting The show is set in a fictional continent called the "Land of Ooo", in a post-apocalyptic future about a thousand years after a nuclear war called the "Great Mushroom War". According to Ward, the show takes place "after the bombs have fallen and magic has come back into the world". Ward admitted "he never planned it – he just saw this world as a magical place. The show developed organically – someone would add an element to the world, and it would stick." Ward went on to state that the writers decided on the backstory during the production of the season one episode "Business Time" which centers around "businessmen rising up from an iceberg at the bottom of a lake." In "The Real You", when Finn wears the Glasses of Nerdicon, planet Earth can be briefly seen from space, with a large chunk missing from it. Later it is shown in the episode "Five Short Graybles," which initially shows the storyteller with a rotating holographic globe with a portion missing, where the North American continent would be. In "Sons of Mars", this depiction of planet Earth is again presented, but not fleetingly like in previous episodes. During a presentation at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, Ward said that this will likely never be directly addressed in the series. References to the war are shown constantly in the background of the show. Ward intentionally adds these and other things to the background. "What I wanted to do was make a game out of every episode of Adventure Time, where you could freeze-frame and find things in the background," said Ward on these Easter eggs. The first two seconds of the opening credits show nuclear bombs, melee weapons and other abandoned human items scattered everywhere, and a skull on the ground. In "Ocean of Fear", when Finn and Jake are out in the middle of the ocean, there is a tank on the small patch of land they swim to. Later on, when they swim to the bottom of the ocean, there are a many sunken cars and tall sunken buildings; this may be a reference to the rising ocean levels caused by climate change. When Jake and Finn fight the Lich in "Mortal Folly", they do so in an abandoned subway station. In the episodes "Memory of a Memory" and "I Remember You" flashbacks to Marceline's childhood show her residing in an unpopulated, destroyed city with broken bridges and buildings on fire. In the episode "Finn the Human", through from an alternate reality, flashbacks showed a nuclear bomb to have played a role in the creation of the Lich. The war's effect on humans is also shown, with there seeming to be no other fully human character except for Finn. However, human remains are scattered all around Ooo. Also, in "Beautopia," a character by the name of Susan Strong is implied to be human as well, although it is unclear whether she is really human or she belongs to a strange fish-headed, animal-hatted mutant tribe. In "Holly Jolly Secrets", Finn and Jake discover a few secret VHS tapes by the Ice King, the last of which shows Ice King as a human. In the tape, he explains he purchased his golden crown from an old dock worker in northern Scandinavia. In "Her Parents" Lady Rainicorn's parents try to eat Finn and after Jake stops them they admit that they thought they would never get another chance to eat a human, implying that humans were hunted, killed, and eaten. This is a possible explanation for why Finn and the fish people wear animal hats, in an attempt to camouflage themselves from potential predators. Characters Episodes Each Adventure Time episode is about eleven minutes in length; pairs of episodes are often telecast in order to fill a half-hour program time slot. The series has completed four seasons of twenty-six episodes each. Its fourth season ran from April 2, 2012 through October 22, 2012; the show's writers have begun work on the fifth season, which started airing on November 12, 2012. Some episodes were drafted, such as "Jake Suit", but were not used; instead, they were incorporated into other episodes. Reception Reviews Adventure Time has a passionate audience of both children and adults "who are drawn to the show’s silly humor, imaginative stories, and richly populated world." The show has received positive reviews from critics and has developed a cult following among teenagers and adults. Television critic Robert Lloyd, in an article for the LA Times, said it "strikes him as a kind of companion piece to the network's then currently airing Chowder and The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. Each takes place in a fantastical land peopled with strange, somewhat disturbing characters and has at its center a young male person or person-like thing making his way in that world with the help of unusual, not always reliable, mentors." He went on to say that the show is "not unlike CN's earlier Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, about a boy and his imaginary friend, though darker and stranger and even less connected to the world as we know it." Lloyd also compared it to "the sort of cartoons they made when cartoons themselves were young and delighted in bringing all things to rubbery life." The A.V. Club reviewer Zack Handlen summed Adventure Time up as "a terrific show, and it fits beautifully in that gray area between kid and adult entertainment in a way that manages to satisfy both a desire for sophisticated (i.e., weird) writing and plain old silliness. This is basically what would happen if you asked a bunch of 12-year-olds to make a cartoon, only it’s the best possible version of that, like if all the 12-year-olds were super geniuses and some of them were Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and the Marx Brothers." Entertainment Weekly named Adventure Time #20 on their The 25 Greatest Animated Series Ever list. Awards and nominations Pilot | runtime = 7 minutes }} The animated short "Adventure Time" originally aired and was available online in January 2007. According to Frederator Studios producer and founder Fred Seibert in April 2008 the pilot "between all of it’s distribution points, has had almost 3,000,000 views". It was then aired as part of Frederator Studios' Random! Cartoons on December 7, 2008, subsequently leading to the creation of the animated series. The short focused on a boy named Pen and a dog named Jake as they learn from Lady Rainicorn that the Ice King has kidnapped Princess Bubblegum, in the hope of marrying her. Declaring that it's "Adventure Time", Pen and Jake set off for the Ice King's mountain lair. Pen and the Ice King fight while Jake remains outside flirting with Lady Rainicorn, ignoring the battle. Just when Pen seems to be gaining the upper hand, the Ice King uses his "frozen lightning bolts" to freeze Pen in a block of ice. For unexplained reasons, this transports Pen's mind back in time, and to Mars, where he has a short motivational conversation with Abraham Lincoln. After being told to believe in himself, Pen's mind is returned to the present, where he breaks out of the ice, just in time to see the Ice King fly away with Princess Bubblegum. Chasing after him using Jake's extendable legs, Pen rescues the princess from the Ice King's grasp. Jake pushes the magical crown off the Ice King's head, thereby removing the King's source of power. The Ice King then plummets off screen, yelling a long list of complex threats of things he will do when he returns. The story closes with Princess Bubblegum giving Pen a kiss, which he enjoys but greatly embarrasses him. He attempts to leave, but Jake claims that they have nowhere else to go and that there are no adventures that need them. Fortunately, some nearby ninjas are stealing an old man's diamonds, and they both run off in pursuit. Other media Toys Jazwares has produced an assortment of 2-, 5-, 10-, and 20-inch licensed action figures for the series, which launched in Fall of 2011. "Grow Your Own" characters that expand more than 500 percent when immersed in water were also released. Role playing toys have also be produced, with a 24-inch "Finn Sword" being released first. Jazwares is also producing a cuddle pillow of Jake and Lumpy Space Princess. Splat toys of Jake and Lumpy Space Princess have been released as of spring 2012. Comic books On November 19, 2011, Boom! Studios announced plans for an Adventure Time comic book series written by independent web comic creator Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics). The series launched February 8, 2012, with art by Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb. In April 2012, a spin-off comic series written by Meredith Gran (Octopus Pie) was announced. Entitled "Marceline and the Scream Queens," it was launched with a six-issue miniseries in July 2012 and features the characters Marceline and Princess Bubblegum. Video games A video game based on the series was announced by Pendleton Ward on his Twitter account. The game, titled Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why'd You Steal Our Garbage?!, was developed by WayForward Technologies for Nintendo DS, and Nintendo 3DS and was released by D3 Publisher on November 13, 2012. The game also has an app called Legends of Ooo: Big Hollow Princess available on the iOS app store. It features characters and locations from the show, Puzzle solving with Finn and Jake, and voiceovers performed by Adventure Time characters. The game costs US$.99 in the United States. Home media References External links * Animation Blog * Production blog * [http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/adventuretime/index.html Adventure Time on Cartoon Network] * [http://www.cartoonnetwork.com.au/minisite/adventure_time/index.php Adventure Time on Cartoon Network Australia] * [http://www.cartoonnetworkindia.com/minisite/adventure_time/index.php Adventure Time on Cartoon Network India] * * * on Wikia Category:2010s American animated television series Category:2010 American television series debuts Category:Fantasy television series Category:Cartoon Network programs Category:Abraham Lincoln in fiction Category:Mars in fiction Category:Vampires in television Category:Shapeshifting in fiction Category:Cartoon Network Studios series and characters Category:Cartoon Network Studios superheroes Category:Television programs featuring anthropomorphic characters Category:Size change in fiction Category:Animated duos